Techno-dystopian science-fiction drama of robot captivity has a soft center under the hardware.
Following a robot uprising, a girl finds herself the lone exhibit in a bizarre zoo in podcaster Lauer’s debut SF novel.
It’s several years after a robot revolution. Previously, the intelligent, cybernetic “borgs” had been used as domestic workers and as gladiators, the latter tearing each other apart for humans’ enjoyment. But the machine creatures rebelled. Six years later, Mirin Blaise, a girl that the borgs had taken prisoner after killing her parents, exists as virtually the sole exhibit in the Draven Zoo, a human specimen roaming through simulated environments while being scrutinized through plexiglass by the dominant borgs. Mirin’s personal caretaker/zookeeper is a particularly baffling borg she dubs Borgie: “What is she computing? Contemplating? If Borgie is conscious, then what sense does it make to trap me here?” Sometimes Borgie shows tender feelings toward the girl; other times “she” (Mirin thinks of Borgie as female) is cold and even violent toward the human, and Borgie’s behavior grows increasingly erratic. Aside from a disastrous attempt to mate Mirin with a captured boy (who turns out to be gay), the girl has no exposure to the outside world. Severed from conventional society and reality, Mirin may not be entirely stable herself. Mirin’s routine is disturbed when she finds the cyberneticist Dr. Draven, a bitter old man, chained up under the zoo compound and a strapping young man is unwillingly installed as a new exhibit. Though the hero’s age would seem to place the story within a YA demographic, it does not hold back on its adult content. Readers might expect an unsubtle anti-zoo/animal rights screed here, but instead the narrative focuses on themes of sentient–AI rights and the meaning of family. Is Borgie, whatever her issues, a legitimate mother to Mirin? Readers of Daniel Wilson’s bestselling robot-uprising novels, such as Robopocalypse (2011), might find this an interesting alternative, one in which emotions (both human and machine) are as vitally important as the slam-bang battle sequences.
Techno-dystopian science-fiction drama of robot captivity has a soft center under the hardware.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798987318027
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Kings of Kontent
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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